Commenting online? Call a lawyer

Five cases where negative online reviews led to litigation

Last week a judge ordered a Washington, D.C., woman to remove statements she made about her contractor on the review site Yelp — a move lawyers say highlights how easy the Internet makes it to cross the line from criticism to defamation.

Christopher Dietz, owner of contractors Dietz Development in Washington, D.C., is suing Jane Perez for $750,000, alleging lost work opportunities and damage to his reputation. After he worked on her townhouse, Perez gave Dietz an “F” rating on Angie’s List and wrote a scathing review on Yelp, alleging he trespassed and damaged her property, and even implying that he may have stolen some jewelry. “I’m not suing for a bad review — I’m suing because she called me a criminal,” Dietz says. A judge ordered Perez to remove the reference to jewelry from her review. The court has yet to decide whether there are grounds for defamation. (A lawyer for Perez did not return requests for comment.)

Apple, Netflix, Yelp prove that content is king

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In the war over technology platforms, content is a potent weapon. Companies like Netflix, Pandora and Yelp risk getting squeezed in the middle. Miriam Gottfried has details on The News Hub. Photo: Reuters.

As more people rely on review sites to make decisions about where to eat and who to hire, businesses have grown more aggressive in their response to harsh comments. “There’s been a rise in the number of people trying to sue because of reviews,” says Michael Luca, assistant professor at Harvard Business School.

Scrubbing bad reviews can boost business. A one-star increase on Yelp’s five-star review system can raise restaurant sales by 5% to 9%, according to “Reviews, Reputation and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com,” a 2011 paper by Luca that combined reviews from Yelp and restaurant data from the Washington State Department of Revenue.

This doesn’t mean commenters need to hire lawyers to prescreen their Yelp reviews, Luca says. But they should understand the basis of the law, for instance the difference between criticizing a restaurant’s Cobb salad and calling the chef a crook, experts say.

Commenters also can take action to protect themselves from possible litigation. Prolific Yelpers might consider getting a personal injury policy on their homeowners insurance that explicitly includes financial coverage for libel cases, says Paul Alan Levy, a lawyer with the nonprofit Public Citizen Litigation Group. Several states, including California and Texas, have anti-SLAPP — Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — statutes that make claims for defamation much more difficult, expensive and time-consuming for a plaintiff to litigate, says Kevin Fink, a lawyer based in Los Angeles.

For a sense of what to avoid when commenting online, here are four more instances where online comments led to litigation.

Plastic surgeon cries foul over RateMD.com review

Anonymity doesn't necessarily insulate commenters from lawsuits, as this case of a plastic surgeon skewered on the site RateMD shows. Armando Soto, an Orlando-based doctor, said statements by the anonymous poster about his “Vaser Liposelection” technique for male body sculpting were “malicious” and, last April, subpoenaed Internet service provider Comcast for the mystery reviewer’s name, billing info and mailing address. David Muraskin, the lawyer who represented “John Doe,” says his client’s statements of “wasted money” and “bad experience” were expressions of opinion. But Domingo J. Rivera, Soto’s lawyer, said John Doe’s statements were inaccurate — and not opinion but facts. David Muraskin, the lawyer who represented John Doe, said his client exercised freedom of speech. The doctor eventually did learn the identity of the commenter, and is still likely to sue, his lawyer says.

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